Raoul Lowery Contreras
August 16,  2002

The long slide into political oblivion of the California Republican Party that started 20-years ago when Republicans won the governorship with a bland Long Beach lawyer will be complete this November 5th Election Day.

The slide accelerated when Republican Governor Pete Wilson blithely blamed all immigrants for the state’s budget deficit he inherited from the bland Long Beach lawyer/governor whose name few can remember. It jumped into high speed when the mossbacks Pete Wilson anointed to run the state Republican Party pumped $300,000 into a petition drive that resulted in the illegal proposition 187.

The thrashing of Republican Dan Lungren by Governor Gray Davis in 1998’s election appeared to be as low as California Republicans could sink, but it wasn’t even close. Only one Republican managed to win a statewide race that year. None will probably win this year.

State Democratic Chairman Art Torres infuriated California Republicans when he declared that Proposition 187 (and its Republican Backers) was the “last gasp” of “white (redneck) America.” How true.

Despite spending millions in California, Candidate George W. Bush, hardly improved the disastrous results of the state’s 1998 election and it wasn’t even his fault.  

The fault lay with those political morons who had been running the California Republican Party after the halcyon days of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

First, they refused to accept that the Long Beach lawyer, Attorney General George Deukmejian, didn’t beat the black mayor of Los Angeles because he was brilliant or even competent, he won on simple racist reflexes. The mayor was black and a majority of Californians refused to accept the color of his skin. This fact is important because Deukmejian’s campaign guru never understood that and is back.

Secondly, Governor Wilson’s crusade against all immigrants, though later refined specifically to illegal aliens, alienated the bulk of California’s fastest growing population, the Mexican origin slice of the state.

Thirdly, the enthusiastic support of Proposition 187, a highly dubious effort fueled by rabid anti-Mexicans, of the state Republican Party drove away hundreds of thousands of Mexican Americans, including many who had climbed into the state’s middle-class. Professor Bruce Cain of UC Berkeley reports that Mexican American men were reregistering Republican at a 50% rate before Proposition 187. That ended with Proposition 187.

Fourthly, and finally, California Republicans got sassy and rejected the two term mayor of Los Angeles, an anti-abortion Roman Catholic millionaire Richard Riordan who appeared poised to smash Democratic Governor Gray Davis into oblivion. Instead, they nominated an unknown son of a brilliant former Nixon Cabinet member, a Roman Catholic William Simon Jr. from New Jersey.

Given the smelly Davis campaign contributions that appear to buy contracts and special favors from Governor Davis, he should be 20 points behind in the polls and rushing into a multi-million dollar defeat at the hands of the proven former Mayor of Los Angeles.

Cavemen fanatic supporters of Bill Simon labeled Mayor Richard Riordan a RINO (Republican In Name Only) and were joined by  $10-million Gray Davis campaign dollars.  Both sides exulted in Simon’s primary victory. Purity is what the Simon fanatics demand and such will bring the worst defeat in California history, come November.

Simon’s proven and documented business failures, negates his platform of a businessman running the state. Simon convinced a jury that he ran a crooked business and awarded millions of dollars in fraud punitive damages to Simon’s business associate, a convicted drug dealer. Simon used tax shelters that are legally questionable. Simon hired Deukmejian campaign manager, Sal Russo, to run his campaign. Simon just fired almost his campaign staff to “conserve” campaign money for television ads.

What fun we had when Democrat Kathleen Brown ran out of money weeks before her defeat by a risen-from-the-political-grave Governor Pete Wilson. Now, the empty wallet is Republican Simon’s.

Empty also is the integrity of Simon and his ersatz campaign staff. Simon brings defeat and disgrace to the once-mighty Republican Party that gave the nation Republicans Earl Warren, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

All we have left is the Party of George Deukmejian, Pete Wilson, Dan Lungren, William Simon Jr. and his rabid anti-Mexican supporters who, every day, are smaller and smaller in number and will soon be as powerless and extinct as the California Republican Party.

Raoul Lowery Contreras'
columns are syndicated by the New York Times Syndicate, New American News service.
 

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